


(I Won't) Run Away

by xansayshi



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Gen, M/M, Missing Scene, Possibly Pre-Slash, or a hand squeeze, typical winter soldier angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-22
Updated: 2020-06-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:42:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24866260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xansayshi/pseuds/xansayshi
Summary: Bucky hadn’t planned on seeing Steve Rogers again after he had fished him out of the Potomac. Too bad the universe has other plans.-A short fic about Bucky after CA:WS and his rather abrupt reunion with Steve in CA:CW.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers & Sam Wilson
Comments: 8
Kudos: 25





	(I Won't) Run Away

**Author's Note:**

> I basically wrote this because I watched Civil War again recently and I realized the only parts of the movie I cared about were the parts we didn’t see. Wrote this right after I saw the movie and then it sat for a bit. 
> 
> I'm trying to get back into the fic writing game which includes actually finishing and posting things instead of abandoning them so here we are.
> 
> The title is from "Run Away" - the Ben Platt song I was listening to right before I posted this.

Bucky hadn’t planned on seeing Steve Rogers again after he had fished him out of the Potomac. Bucky had managed to stay a step ahead of him for nearly _two years_ until Steve, the stubborn bastard, gave up and stopped searching and Bucky finally allowed himself to rest. He’d managed to get himself a tiny apartment in Bucharest, in a building run by men who didn’t care where the money came from so long as they got paid on time. He kept to himself, using stolen Hydra money to keep himself afloat. He could afford better than his one-room apartment but better to remain inconspicuous. Besides, it was about as much as he deserved. 

Sometimes, while he lay on his thin mattress on the floor in his shitty apartment, he let himself think about what would have happened if he had let Steve catch him or if they ever met again. After their last meeting (if you could call shooting the man three times and nearly beating him to death a ‘meeting’), Bucky had walked away, leaving a barely, but still breathing Steve Rogers on the riverbank and then found an empty, abandoned warehouse and holed himself up for three days. Something had been wrenched free inside of him on that helicarrier and he had been defenseless against the barrage of memories that nearly consumed him in those days after he’d walked away from the only lives he’d ever known. 

He wished he’d never gotten his memories back. There were days where they were too unbearable to live with. If he’d escaped from Hydra as a blank slate, an empty man with no past and barely a future, he wouldn’t have to suffer the knowledge of what he was missing. He remembers family - parents, sisters all crammed into a car for a summer road trip to Indiana; he remembers joy - running through the spray of an open fire hydrant in the heat of the summer, finding a dropped coin on the street, and trading it for some penny sweets. Worst of all he remembers love - reading his sisters a bedtime story, sharing his sweets, couch cushions on the floor. Once he’d gotten past the initial pain of the years of torture and murder; once it’s reduced to an ever-present knife in his heart, the predominant emotion Bucky Barnes had been left with a crushing sadness because he knew he’d never be loved again. 

Bucky Barnes was fully aware that he’d been in love with Steve Rogers for nearly his whole life. He thought maybe, at one point, Steve had loved him too. But he was also fully aware that there was no way that Steve could ever love him back now, not after everything. Some days he wished he could be a little less aware. 

On good days, he’d imagine letting Steve find him, imagined being pulled an embrace that felt like home, _I’m sorry_ s and _I forgive you_ s surrounding them as if the last 70 years were just a bad dream. He imagined them reminiscing - now that Bucky had all his memories back - about their childhoods, running around the city, getting in and out of trouble. About the war, even though it still hurts. Remembering Peggy and the Commandos. He imagined Steve being happy to see him. He imagined them living together again, sharing the same space and moving effortlessly around each other, happy and content. 

On bad days, there was no talk of forgiveness, only the cold concrete of the cell he’d end up in and Steve’s stony silence as he turned Bucky in himself. Even worse, sometimes Bucky imagined that Steve wouldn’t even be there at all. He’d imagine the Avengers breaking his door down, all piling through his front door ready to take him down but Steve and his shield would be nowhere to be found, his last lifeline gone forever. 

But of all the possible reunions good or bad that he’d imagined, he never thought he’d find Steve Rogers in his shitty kitchen, there to bring him in after being framed for bombing the U.N. 

He’d spent two years running from Steve but now Steve had caught up and Bucky found himself running away yet again with Steve hot on his heels and a crazy man in a catsuit chasing after them both. He’d been arrested, contained, and then triggered, reverted back into the Winter Soldier. He’d come to his senses with his hand trapped a vise in a dank warehouse. But Steve was there and he hadn’t turned him in. 

Bucky found himself in a car much too small for three grown men because of course, Sam Wilson was there too. He’d followed Steve following Bucky and even though he didn’t trust Bucky (he was right to, Steve had always been too trusting for his own good) he was still there, helping Steve help Bucky and becoming a fugitive in the process. Bucky wondered why Wilson stayed when he so obviously thought Bucky wasn’t worth it but as he watched Wilson and Steve argue about the best way to evade the authorities, Bucky was hit with a sudden pang of jealousy that he hadn’t felt since he was in a dark, smoke-filled pub being ignored by Peggy Carter. Of course, Steve had found someone else, someone worthy of his time. Bucky hadn’t even known he’d wanted Steve all to himself until he realized he’d never have it, especially not now, after everything. How stupid of him to think he’d ever been worthy of Steve.

After his third hour in this tiny fucking car, Bucky started to wonder what even was the point. Why was Steve dragging his out for so long? Bucky told them the truth, told him what he knows. They don’t need him anymore, they’ve got the intel. But there’d been no time for talking - so far his “reunion” with Steve had involved running and hiding and neither one of those activities lent themselves to an earnest conversation and the words got stuck in Bucky’s throat whenever he tried to ask. 

So there he is, squished in the back of this ridiculous vehicle, keeping his head down, letting Wilson drive him wherever. He almost didn’t care at this point. He was pretty sure that no matter what ended up happening, it wasn’t going to be good for him. He was staring at a piece of paper (a receipt? Fast food wrapper?) wedged under the seat in front of him when suddenly a hand appeared between the seat and the car door. Bucky looked up, bewildered, seeing only the back of the headrest and beyond that Steve, pointedly looking out the window. Bucky bent forwards, just a little, and from this angle, Bucky could see Steve’s face in the side mirror of the car. Immediately Steve caught him looking. He lifted an eyebrow as if to say, _well?_ and when Bucky looked down again, Steve’s fingers were wiggling gently: an invitation. 

Heart threatening to bust through his ribs and keeping his breathing carefully controlled, Bucky slowly reached his hand down to Steve’s and his poor heart nearly gave out when Steve managed to intertwine their fingers, squeezing his hand. Bucky gave a squeeze back, and saw Steve’s mouth twitch, fighting a smile for just a moment before settling back into a look of serious contemplation. 

Bucky hadn’t smiled and meant it, in a long time but sitting in this truly stupid car holding Steve’s hand for the first time in what felt like a lifetime, he could feel the beginnings of one threatening to surface. He turned away from Steve in the mirror, following Steve’s lead (wasn’t he always?) and looked out the window. But he didn’t let go of Steve’s hand. 

There’d been no time for talking, not really since Steve had appeared in his apartment, and there wouldn’t be time for a while yet but sometimes they didn’t need words. There'd be enough time to talk later.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Feel free to drop a comment if you liked it. I'm [absolutely-xantasitc](https://absolutely-xantastic.tumblr.com/) on tumblr if you wanna say hi.


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